Kiwifruit expansion causes ripples in Whanganui but operators allay school's fears

A new 20ha kiwifruit orchard has been planted in Rapanui Rd, not far from Westmere School. Photo / Bevan Conley

A Whanganui principal has been assured that a large new kiwifruit orchard near his school will not affect the health of the children.

The corner of the 20ha kiwifruit orchard in Rapanui Rd is 200m from Westmere School.

Principal Phil Walker said he contacted the kiwifruit harvesting company, Apata Group, because he had heard and read concerns about the chemicals used in growing kiwifruit.

He was told there was no need to worry and the company shared a lot of information with him over two meetings, Walker said.

"They allayed a lot of the questions that we had as a school."

Kiwifruit growers are subject to lots of regulation, which also gave Walker confidence.

The school won't be in the firing line from the predominant westerly wind, and it has been given resources to test whether any chemical arrives as spray drift.

Any new industry was bound to cause questions and concerns, Walker said.

"We are hopeful that we are going to have a positive and open communication with them."

One of Apata's general managers, Shaun Vickers, said there was no way that neighbours of the orchard should be worried.

"We would be one of the safest and most controlled industries when it comes to agrichemicals. We aren't cowboys. We don't intend any harm to people or to the environment."

The days of dangerous organophosphate sprays are long gone. Growers now have to reach certain thresholds before they spray, and target their spray to the exact pest.

Scale insects, for example, are sprayed with ultra-fine oils to suffocate them, rather than pesticides. Fruit is subject to residue tests before it can be sold - and the tests can detect chemicals down to parts per billion.

"We want to look after our beneficial insects and birdlife in the orchards. We won't spray during school hours, and we don't spray in heavy wind anyway," Vickers said.

Apata is the only Bay of Plenty post-harvest kiwifruit business that operates in Whanganui. It has been receiving crop from here for about 20 years.

"The growers down there produce some really nice fruit," Vickers said.

The quantity is about to grow, with 60 new hectares of kiwifruit planted since 2020.

Dairy farmer Jarrod Murdoch is managing the development of all of them, and has a team of about 25 staff.

There was no problem getting workers, Murdoch said. Among them are people made redundant by the closure of Waverley Sawmill.

There is a 20ha orchard on his land near Ashley Park at Nukumaru, and that is now part of a syndicate. Another 20ha is at Mangamahu on land owned by David Wells and the third, owned by two sisters, is on the corner of Watt Livingstone and Rapanui roads.

Murdoch has some worries about the Westmere block. He was planning to irrigate it and has a bore sunk and ready, but local iwi Ngā Rauru opposes consent for the water take.

The plants have been established without any irrigation but they won't bear to their full potential without the extra water, he said.

Apata would like more Whanganui kiwifruit to harvest, store and export, Vickers said. It was willing to take a hand in management, set up syndicates and even make small investments in order to get it.

"We basically only make money when we pick and cool store the fruit," he said.

Whether more crop goes in depends on land prices, the availability of investment and the availability of water for irrigation.

Having Whanganui fruit to harvest was an advantage to Apata, Vickers said, because it came in late and extended the working season at its Bay of Plenty packhouses.